Researchers from a broad range of fields find themselves compelled to (re-)consider the nature of their relationship to a common evidentiary practice: the transcription of recordings of naturally occurring spoken interaction. This symposium brings together scholars from an interdisciplinary range of perspectives to take stock of some of the key cross-cutting issues in transcription -- theory and practice, representation and politics -- that continue to have such important, if often unnoticed, implications for how we come to an understanding of the phenomena which are to be discovered in spoken interaction.

The invited speakers all share an orientation to the evidence of naturally occurring spoken interaction (as mediated through audio and/or video recordings), and yet maintain a variety of transcription practices that reflects the diversity of their goals, theoretical orientations, and analytical practices. Despite this diversity, or because of it, now seems an especially opportune moment in the development of our respective fields to come to terms with our common orientation to the challenges of transcription.

The symposium follows the Conference on Language, Interaction, and Social Organization (LISO) May 12-14, 2005. For more information about the LISO conference, contact the conference organizers (LISOconf05linguistics.ucsb.edu) or visit the conference website: http://www.liso.ucsb.edu/conferences/LISOConf2005/

The ''Transcribing Now'' symposium is sponsored by the UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, the Department of Linguistics, and the Department of Sociology.